Just 11 days after a New Orleans jury acquitted him of murdering a man in Desire last year, Tyrone Reynolds saw his life end at the hands of a gunman in that same neighborhood Monday afternoon, officials said Tuesday.

Michael DeMocker/The Times-PicayuneFriends and relatives console one another as police investigate the shooting death of a man in the 3400 block of Treasure Street.

Reynolds, who spent more than 14 months in jail after surrendering to authorities who suspected him of murdering Kerry Emery, died about 3 p.m. in the 3400 block of Treasure Street, coroner's chief investigator John Gagliano said. Someone had fired bullets into the 22-year-old's upper body and left him to die in the middle of the roadway, Gagliano said, ending a 15-day stretch free of killings in the city.

Two other men were also wounded in the attack but survived, New Orleans police and paramedics said.

Investigators are probing the possibility that Reynolds' murder was vengeance for accusations recently lobbied against him in criminal court, though that isn't the only motive they are exploring, police spokesman Bob Young said. No suspects were named Tuesday.

Murder victim Tyrone ReynoldsMeanwhile, Loyola University criminologist Dee Harper said Reynolds' death fit the profile of a "getback" killing.

Reynolds died near where Orleans Parish prosecutors accused him of helping Jeremy "Bambi" Patterson gun down Kerry Emery on July 20, 2008.

During a trial early this month, jurors heard from a neighbor who said she saw Reynolds chase Emery, who he knew, and fire one of the pistols that killed him.

But the jury didn't believe her.

She testified that Reynolds' hair was in dreadlocks and twists. However, Reynolds wore his hair in short twists when Emery, who left behind a wife and two children, was slain.

Meanwhile, as Emery bled from four gunshot wounds, three of which were in his back, he said, "Bambi and them shot me," according to a man's testimony. He didn't name Reynolds, though they knew each other, Reynolds' public defender pointed out.

Reynolds' public defenders also openly blamed Patterson as being the sole killer.

Jurors acquitted Reynolds on Oct. 1, after a three-day trial, and Judge Frank Marullo ordered his release from jail. Patterson, meanwhile, is still at large, wanted by police for the second-degree murder of Emery, a convicted armed robber battling marijuana and weapons possession charges at the time of his death.

Reynolds also served a two-year prison sentence while he awaited his murder trial -- for violating his probation for a 2007 possession of crack cocaine conviction. His probation was revoked in August 2008.

The fact that someone murdered Reynolds so soon after he was freed from murder charges suggests someone was out to exact "street justice" on him for what happened in court, Harper said.

When people don't agree with or "trust the conventional justice system, they come up with their own form of social controls," Harper said. "They do this."